


on the heights of the earth

by BonesOfBirdWings



Category: Primordia (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 16:06:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11294088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonesOfBirdWings/pseuds/BonesOfBirdWings
Summary: The journey home is long and lonely. Horatio endures.





	on the heights of the earth

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyy so I have A LOT of feelings about this game (so expect something longer from me in this fandom later). I don't even know if anyone's going to read this considering this is the first work on AO3 in this tag. But please, if there are other people in Primordia hell, please hit me up. I'm obsessed with this b'sodding game. (Tumblr is flightofmorning).
> 
> (also if you're one of my 91 subscribers you probably didn't sign up for this rare fandom shit and i'm sorry)
> 
> Thanks to Mal for help with the title!

The sand sticks in Horatio’s joints, grinding against the metal viciously with each step he takes. He doesn’t have time for upkeep, nor the supplies for it. Metropol is still a luminescent stain on the horizon, and although the power core is cradled close to his chest, he can feel his energy draining, little by little.

Crispin’s absence is a palpable thing. He doesn’t have a word for it, this feeling. He imagines this is what fragmentation feels like, maybe, a constant sense of something missing. He spares a moment of pity for the eternally mad robots stranded in the shell of Goliath, Alpha and Beta, forever yearning for reconnection.

_Curse you, Horus! Gamma screams._

Clarity’s head is a heavy weight in his pack, nestled next to Crispin’s matrix. He tries not to think of her – her cold, cruel logic and her stupid, illogical sacrifice. When he switches off his optical system, he can still see her desperately gripping the antique gun.

_Horus, Metromind says, named after their god of death._

He should have killed her. He should have overloaded the power cell and blasted everything to bits. He should have used the virus on her, on Metropol, fulfilling his old directive. B’sod, he should have thrown _himself_ off the tower...

But Crispin was more important. Crispin and the power core. So he grimly soldiers on, leaving Metromind to reign over her crumbling city.

_What is thy name, neophyte?_

_Horus._

_Thanatos._

_Death._

* * *

 

In the desert, Horatio dreams.

He dreams himself huge, an enormous consciousness, a towering beast with a thousand limbs. He sees the world through hundreds of eyes, comprehending the universe with unmatched speed. He flies ( _he has always wanted_ –).

He carries death with him.

He throws himself into the ground.

_PARTIAL SERVITOR BACKUP_ , the file reads.

He is separate ( _alone_ ). He is lost ( _alone_ ). He has two eyes and two hands and two legs ( _alone_ ).

_He was created in Man’s own image._

_He builds._

* * *

 

A sandstorm kicks up in the west. Horatio can see the darkness on the horizon. If he was at the UNNIIC ( _the HORUS_ ), he would have taken shelter inside its solid metal walls. But there is no shelter here, and no time to find any. He presses on.

* * *

 

He dreams himself a ghost.

He sees the powerless bodies of robots strewn on the pathways of Metropol, piled in the watery depths of the Underworks. The tower is a smoking spire, Metromind a pile of singed cable and wire.

Arbiter continues to write. _NO CODEBASE TO INITIATE. NO CODEBASE TO INITIATE._

Factor sleeps.

Darkness comes.

 

* * *

The wind scours his body, the sand scraping across metal. He powers down his optical system, shuttering the lenses so that the delicate glass doesn’t get scratched by the flying grains of sand.

He wishes that Crispin was here. He wishes that he wasn’t alone with only his own thoughts for company. He wonders if by the time he reaches the HORUS he’ll be a gibbering wreck, no better than the Shells that haunt the Underworks.

He wonders if when he rebuilds Clarity, if she’ll take his head for his troubles.

* * *

 

He dreams himself mad.

HORUS-rational remembers everything. Remembers the flight into the hazy skies ( _blue, blue when they opened the ceiling and there was_ ) a terror rising up in the ( _desert, death from below, death from the_ ) west, from a city of glass and ( _sky, burning with flame and ash, dark, without_ ) light.

His old body ( _flying, the clouds_ ) is still sparking ( _death in his belly, death in his spine_ ), and it’s the work of a moment ( _PARTIAL SERVITOR BACKUP_ ) to overload his memory circuits.

Horatio Nullbuilt remembers nothing.

* * *

 

The sandstorm has long since died down, the wind calming to a gentle breeze and the sand settling back into massive dunes.

Finally, he can see the shape of the HORUS in the distance, the familiar curves a dark shadow on the horizon. He clutches the power cell closer and fixes his eyes on his home. He does not let himself think of what comes after, where he will go from here.

* * *

He dreams himself free.

He is at the top of Metromind’s tower, Metropol spread out beneath him. The glass has shattered, the lights are dim.

_Maybe,_ he thinks, _they will use my body for scrap - scavenge my innards for copper and my hands for steel. Maybe they will melt me down, recast me in a new mold. If my matrix is shattered, but my shell is repurposed, do I still live?_

_Have I ever lived?_

He jumps.

* * *

 

The HORUS is dark and imposing, somehow more intimidating than when Horatio left it. Perhaps it is because he knows its origin now. Knows what it contained.

Still, it is home. Horatio manages to enter it even though the power is gone. The hole that Scraper left in the side of it makes for a convenient entry point. He’ll have to fix that at some point, but he can’t think of that now.

It’s the work of a few moments to secure the power cell into its cradle. The ship hums to life beneath Horatio’s feet. Without taking off his pack, he connects himself to the power source, feeling the energy rush into him.

He’ll take a few minutes of rest. He thinks, perhaps, he’s deserved them.

* * *

 

He dreams himself content.

Crispin floats beside him, newly whole. He finally has arms. Horatio has the scrap to spare for that. Clarity stands on his other side, all sleek metal and sharp curves, like she was before Scraper. In front of them, he can see all the robots he met in Metropol, the Urbani war trio, the two Factorbuilt brothers, Gimble, and Leopold.

The HORUS is operational. Crispin asks where he wants to go.

“I,” Horatio says, “have always wanted to fly.”

**Author's Note:**

> Note: because I've wanted to play a "full Thanatos playthrough" where you kill Goliath but also get the Thanatos virus and kill all of Metropolis, I had Horatio kill Gamma and also get the decryption module. Although he doesn't *actually* kill them all. Not in this story at least...


End file.
